The nature vs nurture of food: 05 (Size)

 

Anyone who’s had Chinese food will know that most of the ingredients are cut up into (just to name three types): slices (片 piàn), slivers (丝 sī / “silk [strands])” or cubes (丁 dīng).

    Here’s my potted history behind this:  China doesn’t have much land space for forests, so the cooking was designed around this shortage of firewood.  The small size of the ingredients means brief cooking time.  The curved-up shape of the cooking utensil (the wok) is for spreading the heat more evenly and over a bigger area than a flat-base pan/pot would.  Stir-frying (heating up the wok until it’s very hot, then ditto for the cooking oil) rounds it off in the ergonomics of most of Chinese cooking.

    Of course, there are other styles:  fish steamed whole; stewing, which takes a long time, using a lot of fuel.  For the purpose of this blog, which is about the nature vs nurture of food, I’m focusing on the size of the food.

    The Portuguese husband and Brazilian wife couple I’ve been helping out on the allotment with watering and weeding during the growing season love Chinese food.  Yet, the husband told me that Portuguese people don’t like their food cut up into little pieces (whatever shape).  He said he’d be happy enough to eat it if it was in a Chinese restaurant, presumably because that’s how it comes and eating out in a Chinese restaurant is an occasional affair.  They’d rather, however, not have their food served up in tiny pieces.  I asked if it was because it looks more like baby food.  (More on this in another blog.)  He said maybe, but wasn’t quite sure.

    The Chinese, on the other hand, generally do not like being presented with a big chunk of meat (steak, lamb / pork chop, a whole quarter of chicken) for them to cut up themselves at the point of eating.

    Yes, one sees Chinese people (in modern films and real life) eating beef steak dinners, but that’s mostly because they’re trying to be Westernised (as it’s trendy), and again, it’s only the occasional exotic meal out (as with the Portuguese going along with how a meal in a Chinese restaurant would be served), not because it’s natural to them.  (I’m not talking about ethnic Chinese people who’ve been born and brought up in the West.)

    So, even nature / nurture dictates how one likes one’s food to be presented before eating.

Why are Brussels sprouts so hated by so many?

I don’t remember children in my childhood days in Singapore being so fussy about eating their greens.  It seems to be a big and fairly universal problem here in Britain, if not the whole of the Western world.

The Brits are traditionally known for boiling their veg to death.  One reads stories about cabbage cooked until a pulp, leaving the house reeking of cabbage for weeks.  No wonder the Brits hate the cruciferous family of veg.  They are very nutritious, yet are avoided whenever possible, it seems.  

It is, therefore, the presentation that’s at fault — in this case, over-cooking it, not flavouring it except with water and salt.  (To be fair, the Brits have come a long way since with their attitude to cooking, to the point where Britain has built up quite a reputation for its gastronomy.)

It’s almost unheard of in Chinese cooking to just boil their veg, never mind boil it to death.

It’s so easy to be a vegetarian in Singapore — out East as a whole region, actually.  

One can just have three basic staple flavouring ingredients for a stir-fry: soya sauce, garlic, red chilli.  

There’s a wide range of green leafy veg in the market.  Just stir-fry any of those with the three ingredients, and each one will come out tasting delicious — and different, purely on the basis of their own flavour.  Hardly any work at all.

Just to name a few off the top of my head: 

* Indian spinach (the stalks are reddish at the base) 

* Chinese mustard leaves (commonly served in a Chinese restaurant) 

* amaranth

* sweet potato leaves 

* pak choi

* mange tout (/snow peas) 

* runner beans

They all taste different from each other, so there’s no need to wrack one’s brain for different — let alone elaborate — cooking methods (unless one likes to experiment).  Just use soya sauce, garlic, and red chilli.  Pak choi is very bland, so it doesn’t even need garlic or red chilli.

Brussels sprouts can be quartered and stir-fried the same way.  One can vary it by adding dried mushrooms — the dark brown of the mushroom in combination with the dark green of the sprouts makes a visually attractive dish without having to do little presentation tricks like drizzling some arty sauce around it on the plate or topping it with a carved vegetable rose.  Just stir-fry and serve.  

Oh yes, forgot about the contribution of the garlic and red chilli:  white/cream of the garlic, red of the chilli.  That’s four colours in one dish without needing to have a creative streak.  (That’s why I like it, as I’m not arty at all…)